Working abroad

January 3, 2008 | Filed Under Uncategorized |

At Penn State, where the present study was conducted, the growth in education working abroad has been equally dynamic. The number of programs administered by the university’s Office of Education Working abroad Programs has increased from twelve semester/academic-year programs and one summer program in 1979-80 to twenty-nine semester/academic-year programs in 1991-92, eleven summer or intersession programs, and nineteen programs offered through consortia administered by the CIEE. The number of students participating in those programs has increased from 244 in 1979-80 to 555 in the 1991-92 academic year–444 in semester/academic-year programs and 111 in summer or intersession programs, including seventeen in consortial programs.

Although the increase in both interest and participation has been encouraging, the relatively small number of undergraduates working abroad each year is still cause for concern among professional educators. For example, in drawing attention to the fact that over 350,000 foreign students enroll in American colleges and universities each year, the Advisory Council for International Educational Exchange noted that "citizens of other nations are learning more about us than we are about them and each year are doing so in increasing numbers"

More important than the disparity in numbers between foreign students in the United States and U.S. students Working abroad are the demands that will be placed on future generations by the level of national and cultural interdeendence inherent in the contemporary world: The higher education community recognizes that the educated person of the future will need a basic understanding of other nations and cultures in order to function effectively.
Former Senator J. William Fulbright made this point eloquently in The Price of Empire

The vital mortar to seal the bricks of world order is education across international boundaries, not with the expectation that knowledge would make us love each other, but in the hope that it would encourage empathy between nations, and foster the emergence of leaders whose sense of other nations and cultures would enable them to shape specific policies based on tolerance and rational restraint.

In recognition of this growing need, a national movement has emerged in support of enhancing international education throughout the American higher education system. A number of educational organizations have begun to focus on education Working abroad in particular by promoting the idea of a 10 percent undergraduate enrollment objective–similar to what is already being pursued by the European Community through its ERASMUS program (i.e., the European Regional Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students).